Sasikiran holds Ivanchuk

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran did well to hold second seed Vasily Ivanchuk to a draw and retain joint-fifth position after the third round in the Aerosvit International Chess tournament in Yalta, Ukraine.

The draw swelled Sasikiran's tally to 1.5 points out of a possible 3. The Indian will take on Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine in the next round.

The third day provided less fireworks on the checkered red board as only two games ended decisively out of a possible six.

Sasikiran played the white side of a Benoni defense and even though he got an optical advantage, the game remained within the boundaries of a draw.

Ivanchuk went for quick exchanges at the cost of a pawn in the middle game and recovered quickly to reach a level rook and pawns endgame. The peace was signed in just 28 moves.

Spanish Grandmaster Alexei Shirov's party was spoiled by tail-ender Loek Van Wely of Holland, who came up with an inspired performance to register his first victory after losses on the first two days. Eljanov was the other winner of the day accounting for Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania.

Shirov, who was in sole lead at the start of this round, was joined by Ivanchuk, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine and Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia in lead on 2 points out of a possible three.

Sasikiran remained in joint fifth spot along with Eljanov, Alexander Onischuk of USA, Lenier Dominiguez of Cuba and top seed Peter Svidler of Russia.

With eight rounds still to be played, another half a point adrift were Van Wely and Sergei Rublevsky of Russia while Nisipeanu was at the bottom with just a half point from his three games.

Shirov was outdone by Van Wely in a Sicilian Najdorf game where the former played white. Going for a topical variation, Shirov made an error on the 18th move that cost him dearly in a complicated position as Van Wely got his attack against the king rolling. The game lasted 30 moves.

Eljanov defeated Nisipeanu from the black side of a Queen's Indian defense game. The tactical melee in the middle game clearly favoured Eljanov as he knocked down two white pawns forcing Nisipeanu to resign after 37 moves.

In other games of the day, Karjakin played out a draw with Rublevsky, Onischuk signed peace with Jakovenko while Svidler achieved the same result against Dominiguez.

Results round 3:

Sergey Karjakin (Ukr, 2) drew with Sergei Rublevsky (Rus, 1); Alexei Shirov (Esp, 2) lost to Loek Van Wely (Ned, 1); Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind, 1.5) drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 2); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1.5) drew with Lenier Dominguez (Cub, 1.5); Alexander Onischuk (Usa, 1.5) drew with Dmitry Jakovenko (Rus, 2); Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Rom, 0.5) lost to Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 1.5).

The moves: Krishnan Sasikiran v/s Vasily Ivanchuk